Korea’s Division System and Its Regional Implications

25 August 2009

Emeritus Professor Paik Nak-chung

The partition of the Korean peninsula has since the end of the Korean War solidified into a ‘division system' encompassing two otherwise contrastive societies. This notion enables an important shift from a state- or ideology-oriented approach to a people-oriented one, focusing on the oppression of the preponderant majority of population on both sides. It also implies a shift to a global, rather than a nationalistic perspective since the division system is conceived as a sub-unit of the world-system.

The lecture argues that the notion of a 'division-system' is useful in addressing many current issues, for example, the ongoing nuclear crisis in the peninsula and the question of human rights in North Korea. It will discuss various regional arrangements in which South Korea participates, noting the crucial absence of North Korea in most of them and the presence of Australia in a few.

This lecture was the  Korea Institute Distinguished Lecture, presented by the ANU Korea Institute.

Broad Topics: Asia and the Pacific

Sub-topics: International Law, Law, Justice & Law Enforcement, Policy & Political Science, Society & Culture

Areas: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

Paik Nak-chung is editor of The Quarterly Changbi, an intellectual journal. He received his BA from Brown University and MA and PhD in English Literature from Harvard University. In 1966, he founded The Quarterly Changbi, a publication which was banned by the military rulers in 1980 and allowed to resume only in 1988. In 1974 he was dismissed from Seoul National University for demanding a democratic constitution, but returned to his post in 1980 after the death of Park Chung Hee.

A literary critic who also has intervened in social and political affairs, he has authored many volumes including Rewards of Korean Literature in the Age of Reunification (2006), Unification Korean-Style, Present Progressive Tense (2006) and Where Is the Middle Way and Why Do We Speak of Transformation? (2009). From 2001 to 2007 he served as the founding chairman of the nation's first public access channel RTV. and from 2005 to February 2009 as the South Korean Chair of the All-Korean Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration between former President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean Leader Kim Jung-il.